The world is opening up again, and I think I should like it, but I don’t. Coronavirus is maybe kinda sorta on the decrease in a number of places—we’re not sure how many, but we think it’s a pretty good number—so throw the gates open and let’s go! That’s what it feels like.

I know a lot of people are hurting from everything being shut down, and I don’t blame them for wanting to open up again, but we could be doing this smarter. Other countries have much more organized, effective procedures in place for dealing with this pandemic, but we in the US are here, there, and everywhere. It’s frustrating and scary. It feels too soon to be opening up again because I get the sense that it’s happening way too haphazardly to be safe.

I think too that it was just easier emotionally when everyone was quarantined. I knew we were all doing the same thing; I felt a sense of solidarity in staying home. But now I just feel a sense of disjointedness. Everything seems a bit off, and I, for one, am disoriented. How do I move forward in this new pandemic world? Apparently I’m supposed to put on my mask and social distance myself right on into Consumerville and Scheduleville again. But I feel safer and saner in Homeville. I’ll move slowly in this new world, for myself and for others. I’ll be a turtle, all tucked up in my shell if you need me.

I wrote this a couple of years ago for a writing group I was in. Since summer is coming up, and many will be missing the camp experience this time around, it seems like a good time to let this out into the world:

A camp is temporary. Fleeting. It is an adventure and…

I am ten years old, and it is my first time at a sleep-away camp. I am at a week-long soccer camp, staying in a dorm room at a university. I feel grownup staying in a college dorm. I am enjoying the soccer but not the unforgiving social circus. One girl, who is supposed to be my friend, is mean to me. I feel awkward and uncertain of my place here. The independence and sense of adventure of being away from my parents excite me, but I am homesick.

I am twelve years old, at another week-long overnight camp. This one is a church camp. The bunk beds are terrifying. They are narrow, without railings, and I have to sleep on the top. I stick books between the bed frame and the mattress to create a makeshift railing. Flimsy though it is, maybe it will be enough to keep me from falling off the bed and cracking my head open on the concrete floor. There are crickets in the cabins too. I am also terrified of bugs that jump, so this is bad news for me. Each day on our way to the outdoor chapel, we all walk down the silent trail. It’s maybe two feet wide, bordered on either side by small white fence about six inches high. We are supposed to be completely silent while on the trail out of reverence for God. Other kids talk anyway while on the trail but I never do. One time I want to say something so I jump over the little fence and say it and then jump back over. That way I don’t cheat. I am really irritated at the cheating kids. Why can’t they obey the rules?

I am sixteen. I’m at a camp for female Christian athletes in the mountains of Colorado. I’m an athlete, but I’m not so sure I’m a Christian, or at least that I’m the kind of Christian the people at the camp want me to be. I am here anyway, though, because my friends are here and because I don’t know where else to be. And so I struggle through the appeals to pray and read the Bible and get saved. Fortunately, there is also music and quiet time and good food and camaraderie. Each night the whole camp gathers in the auditorium for skits and sharing and singing. We sing a bunch of songs, but there is one we sing a cappella. It’s my favorite. The room fills with a hundred voices, and the result is, well, holy. Being part of that music making is the closest I feel to God all week.

I am twenty-two years old, a senior in college. My housemates and I are camping out in the woods of western Connecticut. We have come to watch another housemate row in a crew race on a nearby lake that weekend. We talk and laugh in our tent, falling asleep hours later to the sounds of the night. There is nothing else in those woods that weekend but us and our fun. I don’t want to go home.

I am forty-five years old. I am at a cabin in upstate New York with my family, immediate and extended. The cabin belongs to my brother-in-law’s family. They call it “camp,” and I never know whether to call it “camp” or “the cabin.” There are eleven of us—four adults and seven children—sharing this five-bedroom, one-bathroom space for one week. We hike in the mountains and swim and kayak in the lake, and we let our kids go the whole week without showering. Someone is always eating, someone is always using the bathroom, and the washing machine gets tired from all the laundry it has to clean. But the kids play board games and card games instead of video games. They read and fight and make up their own religions. The kids eat around a big table in the kitchen, while the adults have dinner on the screened-in porch on a small glass table. The table isn’t really big enough for all of us, but we crowd around it anyway. We can just fit four plates and glasses and the silverware. After we’re done eating, we listen to the chaos coming from the kitchen and watch the woodpeckers click click at the tree just outside the porch. I wish I had a pair of binoculars. When I go to bed at night, I can hear the loons calling through the open windows in our bedroom. I never get tired of hearing their haunting, mysterious song.

I am all of the years old. I inevitably go to camp in my mind every day, as much as I try to remain wherever I am. Life isn’t perfect at camp, but it is full. My capacities to give and receive are exceeded, and it can’t get much better than that.

When I started blogging again last month, my goal was to post every day for thirty days. Tonight would be my thirtieth post, except that I missed two days. The first time I had a headache, and the second time–last night–I stayed up until two in the morning finishing a work project. Not bad. So I’ll reach the goal a little late, but now I don’t doubt I’ll get there. (Cue the part where I knock on wood because I’m afraid I’ve jinxed myself.) And that’s a relief, because I’ve spent a lot of my life setting goals and then failing–usually right away–to meet them. Or not setting goals at all because I wasn’t quite sure which goals I wanted to set, or I only just thought of a goal I might want to set and immediately became overwhelmed.

I was hoping that by the end of the thirty days, writing wouldn’t feel so excruciatingly difficult, like I was trying to push a block of concrete up a hill. I’m not sure I would say it’s any less difficult now, though. What’s changed is that it no longer seems impossible. I’ll take that. Maybe it will always be this hard, but it will just keep feeling more and more possible. I think that would mean I’ve truly accepted that it might not ever get easier but that I can do it anyway.

I’m not quite ready to set a goal of acceptance yet, though. I’m too overwhelmed at the thought of it.

This is a post just to say I’ve posted today. I’m already in bed, and I want to go to sleep, but I didn’t post yet, so I’m just slapping down a few sentences so I can say I did it. Like a kid who waits until the last minute to do her homework and then has to just scribble something right before turning it in. (Hey, I was that kid. Whaddya know?)

So does this count? Is it a legitimate post? Am I cheating? Do I care? I’m not sure. Do I ask myself too many questions? I don’t know. Do I like that I ask myself too many questions? Sometimes. How long do I need to go on before I feel like this is long enough? Why does it need to be a certain length? A post could be two sentences. Two words. What does it matter? Who knows, but apparently it does. I’m having fun writing all these questions and not really answering them.

So does that make this post worth it for me? Was it enough fun? I’ve no clue, but I know that this is now long enough. I declare it legit. Good night.

Writing is hard for many reasons. The words won’t come; we don’t believe in ourselves; we don’t know how to write about our experiences without possibly hurting those we love. But there’s one reason I don’t hear very much about: writing carries with it a lot of responsibility. When words come together just so to bring clarity and understanding, they can shine a light into dark places that nothing else can reach. So when I sit down to try to make the words in my head into something with that kind of power, I feel immense pressure. I have to get it right. If I don’t, my fear tells me, if the light is too weak or maybe even nonexistent, I’ve helped no one; I haven’t done justice to the experience, the feeling, the person, myself.

Representation matters. Communication matters. Misunderstanding can wreck a life, and understanding can salvage it. The links between us are built in large part from words. The best writers have used their words to help me understand and connect with others in a deeper way than I ever could have without them. The light they cast still illuminates dark places I can’t help visiting sometimes. Thank goodness those writers kept going. If they could, so can we all.

Three unrelated haiku. I have a lot of these:

Sterility rules

within walls too high for you.

Tell me a story.

All these old wonders,

nodding off so helplessly.

Unforgiving time.

Fragility rules–

not kings, or muscles, or money.

We are all subjects.

In no particular order:

1. The Shrieking Field Mice
2. The Giant Flying Cockroaches
3. The Biting Black Flies
4. The Gleeful Grim Reapers
5. The Shivering Naked Mole Rats
6. The Spraying Skunks
7. The Swarming Stink Bugs
8. The Fluffy Little Bunnies
9. The Yippy Nippy Chihuahuas
10. The Molting Snakes
11. The Lurking Poison Dart Frogs
12. The Oozing Slimy Slugs

Apparently I can’t count, so there are a couple extra.

If you’re looking to be a little less productive, I am the one to turn to. I have been mastering the art of procrastinating and being unproductive for over forty-seven years! Here are my best pro tips for performing at the very minimum possible:

1. After working for fifteen minutes, take a thirty minute break, during which you do not get up from your chair to rest your eyes and stretch but stare at your phone instead of your computer. To feel extra-unproductive while on this break, look at the profiles of people you don’t know on Facebook.
2. Make that second cup of coffee. Or don’t. If you do, you’ll spend precious work time making it. If you don’t, you’ll keep falling asleep at your desk. Either way, it’s a win for unproductivity.
3. Cats. The more the better.
4. Snacks. Ditto.
5. Kids. Ditto ditto.

I didn’t have time to elaborate on those last three because I waited until the last minute to finish this post. If you need more pro tips, just let me know and I’ll be happy to waste my time thinking of some for you.

I had to go out today to pick up a prescription for my daughter, which meant I got to listen to whatever I wanted by myself in the car. If you are a parent, you might understand what a treat this is. But in this time of quarantine it’s even more of a treat. (Yay, an errand! Not only do I get to go out and listen what I choose, but I get to go sit in a long line of cars at the pharmacy drive-thru window! Oh, blessed day!)

What I really wanted to listen to was NPR. I wanted to hear what they had to say about all things pandemic and reopening. But after a few minutes, the station started to fade out and was slipping back and forth between NPR and some unidentifiable music that I did not at all care for. The longer this went on, the angrier I got. This was my time to myself, probably for the whole day, and it was being ruined by poor reception. I just wanted to hear the news! I just wanted things the way I wanted them!

But then, on top of that, I started feeling shame. I shouldn’t be so angry just because I couldn’t listen to the radio station I wanted to. How immature of me! Where was the equanimity I’d been working so hard to cultivate? If anyone heard me yelling at the radio, they’d think I had an anger problem. What was wrong with me?

Thankfully, though, it didn’t take too long for me to realize what I was doing to myself. There’s nothing wrong with getting angry about this, I thought. A feeling is a feeling is a feeling. Feelings aren’t dangerous to anyone. Last I checked, not one single emotion had been accused of a crime. Even when we are in emotional pain, we’re not in danger. And having a certain feeling at a certain time doesn’t mean we are this or that or the other thing.

Feelings don’t obey rules, and they don’t box us in. We do best when we let them wander in and out of our souls, flowing through like a stream. Or they may slam into us now and then (whether we like it or not) instead of flowing through, but we will recover ourselves. They never stay for good, so although we can observe and know them while they’re with us, it’s best not to get too attached.

I wrote this several months ago, but it seems particularly apropos right now. I’m missing being able to work at coffee shops!

I like the feeling I get when I step into

the neighborhood coffee shop–

all at once familiar and exotic.

I like the smells, the sounds,

the warmth of the coffee

first going down.

I like the many conversations,

the words laying themselves down,

fortifying the web.

I like the laptops and notebooks,

each suggesting works in progress

that could turn into anything.

I like the thought that I could create too,

hooking up to the hive of ideas

and creativity residing here.